Midnight Conversations
by Alchema
Summary: Sesshoumaru has waited centuries for the woman who will bring color and emotion back into his life. He's finally found her, but she's not going to come quietly and he isn't her only suitor. SessKag Based on Christine Feehan's Dark Series. Rating may go up
1. Chapter 1

A/n This is the first story I've posted in a long time and I'm really looking for some constructive criticism from people who don't know me personally. The beginning's not so great, but the chapter gets better towards the end. Tell me what you think.

Disclaimer: I do not Inuyasha or the Dark Series by Christine Feehan.

Chapter 1:

She knelt in front of the toilet, shuddering as the last of what she'd eaten that day left her stomach.

'_Koishii?'_

She ignored the voice and flushed the toilet before getting up to wash her hands and brush her teeth.

'_What is wrong?'_

'_You again? I should stop dreaming you up. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine.'_

She slid back down to the floor with her knees bent and her back against the sink as she wearily moved the toothbrush around in her mouth.

'_Tell me what is wrong.'_

'_I ate too much all right? Everyone's done that before.'_

He was silent, and she felt his reproach.

'_Please don't. Not tonight. I'm so tired. I don't want to talk about this tonight.'_

She stood again to rinse her mouth out and put her toothbrush back in its place. She walked down the hallway back to her room in the dark and sat in the chair in front of her desk.

'_Why do you not sleep?'_

A small smile found its way to her lips as she picked up a highlighter. _'We go through this every night. I have work to do. I can't just leave it here.'_

'_You do not have class for the next two risings. Sleep.'_

She looked between the clock and the book in front of her. It was just after two in the morning. If she let him talk her into sleeping now, she wouldn't wake up until tomorrow evening. If she waited a little, and set her alarm so that she could only sleep for three or four hours, she'd wake up and get back to work without too many problems.

'_I think I should finish this first.'_

'…_What are you doing tonight?'_

Her smile widened as she launched into an explanation of the latest philosopher she was studying. She liked that he listened and could comment on what she was saying. Not like her mother.

The thought of her mother sent a bolt of uncertainty through her and she set down her highlighter and abruptly stopped in the middle of her conversation.

'_She thinks I'm wasting myself on this kind of stuff you know.'_

'_Who?'_

'_My mother. She says I should go back to my science classes so I can get into med school but…I hate them.'_

'_She does not like your ambitions?'_

She shook her head, knowing that he would know even though he couldn't see her.

'_I have a good memory you know? I memorize things and I don't forget them no matter how inane they are. Like serial numbers to laptops or something. She thinks that means that I should be good at everything and that I should keep pushing for it but…Never mind. Forget about it. I think I'll go to sleep now.'_

He withdrew slightly as she got ready for bed so that she wouldn't sense him fuming. Her mother didn't know that she was working herself into the ground. Her mother could only see her own selfish dreams and didn't realize she was slowly killing her daughter.

She reached for him again as she was sliding beneath the covers.

'_You know, I've never asked you…'_

'_What?'_

'_What's your name?'_

He couldn't stop the small smile that had made its way to his face. They'd been conversing for weeks, but she hadn't asked anything about him until now.

'_Sesshoumaru.'_

'_Sesshoumaru. Well then, Sesshou I am Kagome. My friends here call me Kags though.'_

His claws bit into his palm as he clenched his fist. She had never given him any personal information, knowing that he was looking for her. What had changed tonight? Whatever it was, it was enough for him to overlook the foolish nickname she had given him.

'_Tell me a story.'_

'…_Are you asking this Sesshoumaru for a children's story?'_ Her laugh brushed over him.

'_Not a fairy tale or anything. I get the feeling that you are very old. Renaissance old. You must have seen so many interesting things. Besides that, compared to you I'm a baby. So, tell me a story.'_

Despite the childish way she had phrased the question, he understood what she wanted and was surprised that she had tried to pin his age (though he was older than what she suspected).

Halfway through his tale about a famous, long dead artist, she fell asleep. He missed her sleepy commentary almost instantly and fell silent himself. A few moments later he roused himself. He had a clue as to her whereabouts now. It was only a matter of time until he found her.

He knew that she was somewhere in the western part of America, most likely somewhere in the south-west from her description of the heat and lack of humidity. Of course, he was bound to run into some problems (who knew how many Kagome's there were in that part of the country) but he was closer than he had been before, and that was something at least.

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She sat at her desk and shoved away the urge to cry in frustration. It was almost three in the morning on Monday and she had yet to get anything accomplished. She looked away from the note cards she was making to try and determine where her weekend had gone.

Sesshoumaru had convinced her to sleep Friday night, and as she had predicted, she'd slept for a good thirteen hours, only awakened by a phone call from her friend Eri. Eri had predictably wanted to get together and cook dinner, so Kagome had gotten up and headed over to her friends apartment. She'd made it back home around midnight, but she'd stayed up reading a novel for two more hours.

She'd woken up at around nine on Sunday morning but had dived back into the novel, completely forgetting about her assignments. As she was getting ready to start her homework, Eri had called in tears and it had taken some time to draw the whole story out and then console her friend. This had ironically thrown her mood into a downward spiral, and she found that she was fighting herself just to complete the homework that was due in a few hours.

Stubbornly, Kagome shoved away any and all discomfort to concentrate on the note cards she was making for the quiz she had in a few hours.

'_You got yourself into this Kags. Where has the responsibility and self-discipline of high school gone?'_

'_You are not taking care of yourself.'_

Oh not now. Not tonight.

'_Kagome?'_

A few hot tears squeezed past her tightly closed eyes and trickled down her face.

'_Go away. Please go away. You're not real, I made you up in my desperation for someone to talk to and now I'm making you go away.'_

'…_this Sesshoumaru is not a figment of your imagination.'_

'_You're either someone I made up or you're a mass murderer. I'd much prefer it be the first. Please go away.'_

Propelled by instinct, he followed the trail she was broadcasting with her thoughts. It was time to end this once and for all. She needed him whether she wanted to admit to it or not. If he could just keep her talking long enough to find her…

As if she had caught the stray thought, the link between them was suddenly severed as she put up a block. It was block he could get around, but he doubted if that would be conducive to his ultimate goal.

It didn't matter anyway. He had followed her presence in his mind and now knew she was San Francisco. If his memory served him, there was only one university there that met the description she had given him. How hard would it be to find one untrained miko?

It was too close to sunrise to do much more than travel the short distance to San Francisco. By some stroke of luck he had a house just outside of the city. He would rest there until sunset and then, he would find her.

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Despite her distractions over the weekend, she'd done passably well on her quiz and completed most of her homework. Now, a little before sunset, she was waiting outside of her teaching assistant's office as he handed back essays and spoke with each student individually.

For any other class, she would have waited until the next discussion section and received her grade with everyone else. For this class, though she truly enjoyed philosophy, she had another reason for coming to get her grade early.

"Kagome? You can come in now."

She stepped back and let a frowning boy go by as he read the comments on his essay, then slipped inside the dimly lit room and stood nervously in front of the desk.

Instead of sitting behind the desk in a chair, her teaching assistant was perched on the front of the desk with his long jean-encased legs stretched out in front of him. Her essay was held face down in large, long fingered hands and Kagome checked once again for a wedding ring though she knew there wasn't one there.

Her eyes flickered up and took in the slightly nerdish blue striped shirt and wire-rimmed glasses set on a too large nose. His eyes were small and deep set and his eyebrows entirely too thick. His hair was dark and cut close to his scalp but a little too long to be considered a buzz cut.

All in all, he was not attractive nor was he ugly. 'Plain' was a good way to describe him. Despite his lack of good looks, Kagome had a crush on him anyway. It wasn't his looks that attracted her, but his intelligence. He was a graduate student a year away from getting his Ph.D and he had a true love for philosophy that he'd managed to instill in her as well.

She shook herself out of her thoughts and accepted the essay when he passed it to her. Later, in the privacy of her room, she would read through his comments over and over again, as if they were small declarations of love. For now, she just wanted to know what her grade was. After the last discussion session she had been afraid that she had misinterpreted one of the philosophers and failed the essay. She found that her fingers trembled as she flipped to the last page.

At first, she wasn't certain that she'd read the grade or the comment he'd written underneath correctly (his handwriting was atrocious), but when she blinked and it was still there her jaw dropped as she looked up at him. His eyes twinkled slightly and he smiled at her.

"Excellent as usual Kagome. I gave you full marks."

She squealed and threw herself at him in a brief embrace before she remembered that he was her _teacher_ and it was not at all proper for her to be hugging him in the privacy of his dimly lit office. She pulled back quickly even as she felt her face heat up and mumbled an apology before she darted out of the office and down the hallway, not bothering to glance at his no doubt shocked expression. It wasn't until she was running down the steps to the ground floor that she let another smile break across her face.

An 'A' with three pluses behind it! He really liked what she'd written and he thought her normal work was excellent! Thinking of his comment in the office made her slow down and look at her essay again, this time slowly reading each comment he had written in the margin.

Each word of agreement or amusement made her smile widen and a little more heat rush to her cheeks. Maybe once the class was over and he wasn't her teacher anymore, they could have a more casual relationship. Friends first of course…but later…

She bit back a giggle as another surge of happiness overcame her and she tucked the essay into her bag tenderly as she headed to the bus stop. When she got back to her room she would read it all again, and search for hidden meanings in his words.

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Sesshoumaru was torn between excitement and fury.

The strong surge of emotion from Kagome had awoken him and drawn him into her mind in moments. Finally, he would find her and make her his. It had been easy to slip into her thoughts (she was very preoccupied) and peer at the world through her eyes. He had not liked what he'd seen.

She was _fawning_ over that ridiculous awkward-looking boy who apparently didn't know how to sit at a desk properly. He wasn't the least bit attractive and didn't have the slightest clue that she admired him. His envy hadn't spiked, however, until she'd hugged him.

She'd given him a hug. A _hug_. She had willingly jumped into his arms, wrapped her own about him and pressed herself against him wantonly. Though Kagome hadn't looked, Sesshoumaru had seen the surprised and then pleased look that crossed the assistant's face as he looked at her in a new light before she sped out of the office.

Sesshoumaru wanted to kill him. Slash him apart, burn his skin off with the acidic poison that dripped from his claws, have him drawn and quartered, _anything_ to make the threat to his mate disappear. Or he could simply castrate him. A smirk crossed Sesshoumaru's face as he jumped into the air and flew towards Kagome with red bleeding into his eyes. Castrating would be nice, but killing was a more fool proof plan (Kagome's admiration hadn't extended to physical desire yet and he didn't want to chance her affections remaining even if the emasculated boy couldn't offer her that kind of pleasure). He would castrate the man and _then_ kill him, thereby eliminating all future problems.

More small surges of happiness came from Kagome as she read each of the messy comments scrawled in the margins of the paper. Each surge made him increase his speed and more determined to rid her mind of the idiot boy who still sat flushed in his office. Once he had her she would never think of another man again. He'd make sure of it.


	2. Chapter 2

A/n Okay, so this chapter took a different direction from where I wanted it to go. I'm really more of a Drama/Angst/Fantasy writer so the Romance thing is new to me. Constructive criticism is needed and greatly appreciated.

Chapter 2:

For once, the bus had arrived promptly.

She flashed her student ID at the bus driver and hastily made her way to the back of the bus. There were two reasons for her choice of seating, one more practical than the other. The first was that after sunset the bus driver tended to turn the air conditioner up as high as it would go. During the summer this was a good thing except if (like Kagome) your stop was the second to last one on the route and you wore a tank top and shorts to keep cool during the day and thus opted to freeze on the bus.

The other alternative was to sit at the back left hand corner of the bus which seemed to have a furnace underneath it. Her second and far less practical reason for sitting at the back was so that she could reread her essay in peace, this time not only to read the comments on the side, but to read what she had written. She had found this was a good way to review material for the next class and it was nice to see which of her opinions he agreed with.

Having been plagued during middle school with labels like 'geek,' 'nerd,' and 'know it all' Kagome had learned quickly that it was best not to show off her intellect around her classmates. Instead, she did the opposite, drawing into her shell and barely speaking in class. A small smile tickled her lips as she remembered one of her teacher's reactions to her silence.

She had assumed that Kagome was, for lack of a better term, one of her dimmer students and was surprised when she received an essay that was worthy of an 'A.' Concerned that Kagome had cheated, she proceeded to check the essay for plagiarism and went so far as to question Kagome's previous teachers. She had been surprised to learn that Kagome was not unintelligent, she just didn't broadcast the fact.

Though she was in college now old habits died hard as the saying went, and Kagome found it hard to voice her opinions in class even though she knew it was far less likely that she would be ridiculed. In addition to that, she liked the way some of her professor's brought the class to understand something. Each professor (and some teaching assistants) had their own brand of question and answer sessions that were used to string students along the path to an ultimate conclusion.

Kagome referred to it as the 'bread crumb' method because it reminded her of Hansel and Gretel, only the crumbs were leading a trail to knowledge.

As usual, her teaching assistant had left a book title crammed in the margins of the last page of her essay as a recommendation. He always seemed to know an author who mirrored or at least mentioned her train of thought and frequently suggested pertinent books for her to read.

She circled the title and tucked the essay back into her bag just as the bus lurched to a stop and opened its doors to let more people board the bus. It was the last busy loading zone they would come to and the half-way point on the route, but at this hour there weren't likely to be a lot of passengers. As it was, Kagome and one other boy were the only people on the bus. She pulled a copy of her philosophy book out of her bag and flipped through it idly, stopping every once in a while to read something she'd highlighted or scribbled in the margins.

Finally, one person boarded and the bus lurched again as the driver merged back into the nonexistent traffic.

Out of habit, Kagome glanced up to see who the new passenger was and gave a small smile as she saw the slender woman with long brown hair who sat next to her in philosophy. The woman moved from the seat she had chosen to the seat directly next to Kagome's with a rueful smile on her face.

"I'm sorry, I can't quite remember your name."

"Kagome."

"Right, I'm Sango." Sango paused and then pulled out her own essay out of her bag. "Want to trade?"

Kagome laughed and nodded and they both sat in silence for a few moments as they traded and skimmed each other's essays. Sango gasped as she reached the end of Kagome's essay and looked up.

"You got an _A_? You know he only gives out two when he's grading?"

Kagome's face matched Sango's shocked tone as she shook her head. "Only two? I always get A's in his class…"

"It's why our class is so small compared to the other ones. He's a hard grader. Brian, or is it Brantley? Anyway, you know the kid that sits up front with the laptop? Brown hair with glasses?" Kagome nodded. "Well he's the other kid who always makes A's. No offense, but you're so quiet I never thought _you'd_ be the other genius in the class."

Kagome shrugged, uncomfortable with the topic and thankfully Sango switched gears and asked which apartment she lived in. They chatted until Sango's stop at which point they exchanged phone numbers and email addresses with the intent of having lunch or a study session later. With that, Kagome found herself alone on the bus again (the other boy had gotten off three stops before Sango).

She hugged the essay to her chest and stared out of the window though it was too dark to see anything. The genial comments written on the sides of her essay were not at all like the sharp reprimands she'd seen on Sango's paper. Suddenly, each little note seemed that much more precious.

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He'd been in the shadows outside of her apartment building when she got off the bus. Though his original intention had been to decimate her idiotic teaching assistant, it went against his instincts to leave her unprotected at night where she could get into all sorts of trouble.

She was not at all what he had expected.

She was shorter than he'd imagined and thin enough that he could tell she hadn't been eating properly again. He would have to make sure that she improved her eating habits immediately. Her attire was an odd mixture of styles and showed a smooth expanse of skin that his fingers itched to caress.

She wore a purple lace-edged tank top that came to rest underneath her belly button. Her midriff was exposed and the only item of jewelry she wore was a small pendant on a gold chain that lay below her collarbone and drew his eyes downward to her cleavage. He had no doubt that the necklace had that effect on a lot of men and fought for control against his inner beast as he turned his attention back to her.

Her shorts were black and slung low on her hips with a silver chain-link belt that was more for decoration than anything. As he eyed the shorts again he realized that they were boy's shorts and wondered why she had chosen them. Her shoes were plain black flip flops and her toenails were painted a bright purple color.

His eyes traveled back up to her face and he noted the round chin, slightly upturned nose and liquid blue eyes framed by thick dark lashes. At that point, his fury had melted into fascination and he knew she would cause him endless amounts of trouble if he melted every time she looked at him instead of holding firm to his position.

Deciding that tonight was as good a night as any, Sesshoumaru held the image of a small dog in his mind and let his shape change until he was the exact image of the picture in his mind. All he'd had to do then was trot over to her door and wait for her to notice him.

She'd hesitated when she first saw him, but when she decided that he wasn't going to bite her she checked him for a collar and giggled when he licked her hand. He hadn't been able to help a smug grin as she crammed the much-beloved essay into her bag without caring if it wrinkled and picked him up as she walked through the door.

The rest of the night had been spent in her lap as she alternately petted him and did her homework. Technically, he could have revealed himself at any time, but he enjoyed her touch and reveled in the way she cooed at him instead of gushing over her essay. When she turned out the lights and went to sleep he admitted to himself that he could continue the charade no longer and reverted back to his normal form.

He stood over her with a smirk on his face as he rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. She was lying on her stomach with her face away from him, drifting in a semi conscious state. Her spaghetti strapped nightgown was made of a smooth dark green fabric and had bunched at the tops of her thighs. Gently, he put his hands on her shoulders. As he had predicted she tensed and her eyes snapped open, alarmed that someone was in the room with her.

'_Relax Kagome. It is only me.'_

Her muscles loosened up for a moment before she tensed again and tried to push herself off of the bed. Sesshoumaru had expected this and pressed her firmly into the mattress and kept her head facing away from him.

"What are you doing? How did you get in here? Did you hurt Fluffy?"

'_I could never hurt you and I will not—who is Fluffy?'_

"My dog. Well, he's not my dog exactly, I only just found him today but I don't think anyone else owns him."

What kind of a name was Fluffy? Though admittedly too cute for his tastes, the small dog he'd shifted into was in no way shape or form 'fluffy' and he almost resented the description. _'…He is fine.'_

"Why did you come here?"

He leaned down and put his mouth next to her ear. "Why do you not speak to me with your mind?" Kagome shivered and missed the smug smile that crossed his face as he began to massage her shoulders.

"Relax koi, I just want to help you sleep." Despite her misgivings she found herself relaxing underneath his hands.

Though she'd been conversing with him for weeks, his mental voice wasn't quite the same as the way he sounded aloud. The actual sound of his voice in her ear had made her want to give in to whatever he wanted. It was a beautiful sound, deep and rich with a slight accent that made shivers run down her spine.

Not for the first time, she wished she could see him. She knew he had long hair that occasionally brushed over her skin as he leaned over her. His hands felt large and hot against her back and it seemed he was leaving a trail of fire that pooled low in her stomach. He knew exactly which spots needed the most work and which spots she was happy just to let him caress. When he pushed her hair out of the way and moved up to her neck she inhaled sharply through her nose and shuddered. Her neck was especially sensitive and she heard him chuckle at her reaction.

He moved to her shoulders again next and then worked his way down her arms. She made a contented noise as he took the time rub each of her fingers between his. When he started to pull the straps of her nightgown down her arms she stirred in protest but he made a shushing noise and pulled the straps down anyway so that she was uncovered down to the small of her back. He worked the muscles in her back for awhile longer, until she was drifting again, her eyes half lidded.

By the time Sesshoumaru moved from her back she was only partially awake and thus didn't protest when her clothes simply winked off of her body and he continued to caress bare skin over her butt, down her legs and to her feet. When he'd finished with the last toe on her right foot he gently rolled her over and worked his way up her body.

It was when he reached her shoulders that he realized he had pushed himself beyond his limits. The vein in her neck pulsed with blood and he could hear her heart beating in his ears. Fangs exploded in his mouth and he leaned down to press his lips to her neck.

He littered small kisses down her neck, nipping and licking past the soft skin of her collar bone and over her breast until he was directly over her heart. His tongue swirled once, twice, and he sank his fangs into her, lapping at the blood that rushed to the surface. She gasped underneath him and buried her fingers in his hair. It was an enthralling mixture of pleasure and pain that she'd never felt before.

When he had taken enough for an exchange he closed the pinpricks with a swirl of his tongue and pulled her into a sitting position. With a wave of one of his hands, his shirt disappeared and he brought one claw up to his chest and made a slash. As blood dripped out of the wound, he brought her head to his chest and wrapped her hair around his fist.

'_Drink koishii.'_ He commanded her firmly and trembled when her mouth moved against him. She caught the drops that had trailed down his chest with her tongue and followed them back up to the wound. The feeling of her taking blood from him was an incredible form of ecstasy that left him hard and heavy. He let her drink enough to replace what he'd taken from her and groaned in disappointment as he pulled her away.

Sesshoumaru licked a finger and dragged it across the wound to let his saliva heal it and lowered her back to the bed. She blinked at him sleepily with a small pout on her face and he bent to lick a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth.

'_Sleep until the next rising koi. I will come to you then.'_

He watched as the command sent her into a deep sleep and pulled the covers over her. He knew that he needed to feed but felt reluctant to let the taste of her leave his mouth. For a few moments, he watched her sleep and memorized the features of her face. Finally, the impending dawn forced him to leave her side. After pressing another kiss to her forehead, he dissolved into mist and traveled under the doors until he was outside of her apartment.

The bright colors in the predawn light shocked him back into his body and he stood mesmerized by the vivid shades around him. It had been centuries since he had last seen anything in color. He had Kagome to thank for both the return of both his emotions and color to the world. She was the lifemate he had waited so long for. A slight prickling of his skin reminded him of the rising sun and he jumped into the air to fly back to his house outside of the city.

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The next evening Kagome sat in her room and glanced out of the window periodically at the setting sun. Her memories of the previous night were blurred and that coupled with the remaining evidence sent off alarm bells in her brain.

It had been a struggle to wake up that afternoon and her mind had felt muddled, as if something were trying to keep her asleep. She had fought for clarity and splashed cold water on her face to rinse away the remainder of sleep. It was at that point, standing in front of the mirror with water running down her face and dripping off of her chin, that she realized she was naked and there was a hickey on her breast.

She'd quickly wrapped a towel around herself and bolted back to her room. Her night gown and underwear were folded neatly on her dresser. Warmth radiated from the mark on her breast and she pressed a hand to it as she browsed through her muddled and disturbing memories. Heat rose in her cheeks as she thought about what had occurred the night before with Sesshoumaru. What had come over her to let a virtual stranger touch her that way? Not to mention what he must have seen if he'd left a mark _there_. She'd gotten dressed after that and alternated pacing the room for sitting on her bed.

A tingling on the back of her neck jerked her out of her thoughts and she turned to look out of the window again, noticing that the sun had set completely. She blinked and he was there, tall, broad-shouldered, and imposing and holding her eyes with his.

For a moment she sat there with her hand over her chest, though she wasn't sure if it was there to calm her racing heart or to hold his mark closer to her. When she got over her shock, the rest of her emotions from earlier that day caught up with her, indignation being the most prominent.

"Where do you get off appearing out of thin air like that? My heart skipped a beat! Don't you vampires have some sort of code about not coming in someone's home if you haven't been invited?"

"Vampire?" He sounded displeased with the term and his brow creased slightly in a small frown.

"Yes _vampire_ or is there some other creature that runs around taking people's blood? How did you get in here anyway? The windows are locked and I'm _positive_ that somewhere it says I have to invite you in before you can just pop in here like that." She was starting to become uneasy again as she remembered what he was and what he could do.

"I am _not_ a vampire."

"You ate Fluffy!"

Sesshoumaru kept his mouth shut for fear that he would laugh (a most undignified response) and spoke to her on their mental link instead. _'I am an inuyoukai. We do not kill when we feed and I have never fed from a small dog.'_

He watched as she bit her lip and gently perused through her thoughts. He was amused to note that she treated him like a particularly difficult philosophy question, with several trains of thought going at once.

Kagome shifted uneasily and stepped away from him. Against her better judgment she wanted to believe him but that meant opening her eyes to an entirely new world she wasn't sure she wanted to know about. She squeezed her eyes shut and raised her hands to massage her temples but he was already there, lightly rubbing his fingers in a relaxing circular motion.

Their eyes met and she held his gaze, noticing for the first time that his eyes were like ambers. "How do you know what I want before I do?"

"I am in your mind. You could be in mine, if you wished."

She made a noise of disagreement. "I'm not like you. I don't know how I'm talking to you that way. My cousin can hear people's thoughts, but no one else can hear her when she tries to talk back."

Sesshoumaru's gaze narrowed and he let his hands fall from her temples down to her hands which he took in his and proceeded to run his thumbs over her knuckles.

"You know of others like you?"

"What do you mean like me?"

"Youkai males need to find their other halves to be complete. Without lifemates, we lose the ability to see color and feel emotion. Some face the dawn rather than face a lonely existence and others fall into bloodlust and become the creatures that humans call vampires.

"Centuries ago our population flourished and there were not so many without lifemates, but there were wars and we were hunted by groups of humans who thought us to be vampires. Now we are few and the males out number the females four to one. The few children that are born are male, and they often die in their first year of life. We are a dying race.

"Those of us who are old enough remember when it was not uncommon for a youkai's lifemate to be a miko. They didn't often mingle with others and preferred to stay with their own, but they may have assimilated themselves into the general populace. I think you are one of their descendants."

"Miko have holy powers. They purify and bless things. I don't do either of those."

'_Yet you know when things are going to happen before the event actually occurs.'_

Kagome averted her eyes when he refused to let her squirm out of his grasp. "Let's say I believe what you just said. What does any of this have to do with me?" She was going out on a limb with that one because she already knew the answer really, but it couldn't hurt to try right?

"You are my lifemate."

Her eyes widened and she tried to jerk her hands out of his with little success. Sometimes, she hated being right. "Okay, stop. I don't want to hear anymore about miko lifemates and vampires and youkai right now. This is too much information at once and I think I might overload. Can we go back to something normal? Like where my poor dog is and how you got in here?"

'_Why don't you look and see?'_

She knew what he wanted. He was clearly baiting her, tempting her to delve into his mind. Something warned her that it wouldn't be a simple skim of the surface either. He wanted her to merge her mind with him completely and Kagome knew that if she did she'd never be the same again.

For the entire conversation she'd been fighting traitorous reactions from her body. Though she'd managed to avoid thinking about it by concentrating on what he was saying, the fact was Sesshoumaru was gorgeous. His hair was long and silver, and while it could be considered feminine she thought it gave him an aristocratic air.

His eyes burned with possession whenever they rested on her and he'd barely looked away from her the entire night. She had discovered that listening to him and gazing into his eyes at the same time was enough to set her heart pounding and turn her legs to mush. She hadn't seen him smile yet, but she had the feeling that that too would make her melt and render her useless. If that wasn't enough, he was sinfully handsome and she itched to run her hands over his shoulders, down his arms, and across his back and chest.

As far as she was concerned Sesshoumaru already had control over her body. Did she really want to give him control of her mind too?

A/n I am so happy! I can't believe that people have actually read my story! Thank you all so much for my reviews. They kept me smiling for days. I'd like to thank you all here individually, but I don't think that allows that anymore (if I am wrong, please tell me). At any rate, tell me what you think of this chapter.


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